2013 Green Grand Prix - NY - Fri Apr 19

[Gasoline Fumes]

Who's going to be there and who has entered? I'll be arriving late morning and I have to leave around 2 PM.

[brucepick]

I have to admit, April weather usually impacts this event or the trips to and from on the days before and after.

Last year it rained on Day 2 for the GGP lake-loop rally run. A Corvette group had track priveges that day and at least one of them spun out on the WGI track. The year before, my brother (my navigator) and I both left promptly after the awards ceremony to avoid driving in an approaching heavy rain storm.

[sendler]

Sorry. No video cam yet.

[sendler]

It looks like I will have to ride the PCX150 this year. My CBR250R is in the middle of aero mods and I didn't get it done. The PCX is just as fun to ride and should still get about 110 mpgUS at 45 mph on the track.

[brucepick]

Scott,

Wishing you the best of luck for the GGP. Last year I was doing repairs to the belly pan in the hotel parking lot the night before the track event.

I'll miss seeing you and the other ecomodders there this year. My toe was "modded" in surgery and I'm not even walking yet.

[sheepdog 44]

Much fun, Very tired! Good stuff, much to tell. Going to sleep now...

Hey Scott, i left a VLC poster with Bob Gilespie for you. I hope he remembered to give it to you.

[sendler]

Bob didn't give me anything. He didn't even announce any of the fuel economy results at the banquet even though he had a team feverishly adding up the points to determine which vehicle went around the track at exactly 45 mph and stopped in the pit for exactly five minutes three times.
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That is a competition?
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He comes from a Time/ Speed/ Distance rally background and unfortunately finds me and my motorcycle to be a bother. Even though I beat every other vehicle there on fuel economy by a wide margin. So there was no way he was going to announce that and make a big deal out of me. If I had known they weren't working on the fuel consumption data, I would have volunteered to divide it up myself. It takes a team of skilled workers 30 man hours to compute all the scores from the TSD rallys, it would have taken me 15 minutes to figure all of the fuel data.
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I got 124 mpgUS on the track. Down 10 from last year due to the violent head wind on the back straight. The Alfred State competition Insight got 62 on the computer. All of the cars were way down. The guy with the Heinkel doesn't dare to drive it anymore because it is worth $100,000 to a collector. The DIY Tadpole diesel chickened out also.
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The road course was really fun and even included a stretch of unpaved dirt. Great roads they chose. Lots of slamming on the brakes though as it was a challenging rally. Many of the competitors made wrong turns several times including the team I was following. I wonder how long it will be before the SCCA, which is the only way to get an event like this insured, acknowledges fuel economy and develops a formula for sanctioned competition that is free from the TSD complexity and man power issues. I think that if the Green Grand Prix organizers offered a choice to just use a map instead of the purposely tricky turn by turn TSD directions of the same roads, many of the competitors would rather do that.
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I did 109 mpgUS over the road which may indicate a slight over fill after the track. I expected my track numbers to match the 134 I got last year. I would like to know my average speed on the track. I think most of us end up averaging a little faster than 45 mph.
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The plug in hybrid modders are brainwashed. If you ask them how they did, they want to mention only the fuel used and claim a huge victory. 220 miles for the day on 1.2 gallons of gas. What about the $5.00 of electricity you just stole out of the wall twice without paying for it?
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Aside from the wind, the weather was nice right up until the last car was refilled. The electrathons even got their race in. Then the skies open up as we had dinner, turning the grass parking lot into 4 inches of mud. One Insight got buried up to the axles and had to get drug out by the tractor. Very fun day. It will be interesting to see where the future of the event goes as more competitors, including the two Alfred State (they brought 5 cars) drivers that got lost, bring pressure to abandon the TSD format.

[sendler]

A few pics.
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Troy rode his e bike 70 miles from Rochester and camped.
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[brucepick]

Scott,

Thanks for posting the pics.

Very sorry to learn of the lack of any scores for fuel economy. Were many others visibly disappointed? I certainly would have been.

Did Bob say anything t soften the blow? Did he apologize to the assembled dinner crowd or promised o post full results soon on the GGP "site"?

[sheepdog 44]

I'll weigh in on the event later tonight. I got some good pictures but it'll be a few days till i can upload them.

I think we should have our own event this year. The eastern part of New York in the Tri-state area would be a good place. More centrally located to ecomodders. I know of 3 Insighters in the Hudson valley area personally, and several more in my area i could try to coax into attending (not counting the ones i don't personally know). Theyre from Insightcentral.com, which could give the event a better turnout.